CRITIQUE – Camille Perton’s first film evokes the lark mirror of contracts signed by young players. An interesting subject but that comes up against the clichés.
Wednesday, May 7, evening of the Champions League with a return semi-final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal, the box office will be morale at half mast, as each time a beautiful poster coincides with the day of cinema outings. You have to believe that football fans like cinema. However, lovers of round ball, so numerous in front of their domestic screen, do not rush into the dining room see the films that stage the most popular sport, with sometimes incomparable dramaturgy.
The paradox is verified each time. Recently, marketTristan Séguéla’s thriller, with Jamel Debbouze as a indebted player agent and on the teeth a few hours before the closing of the transfer market, however very successful, made a flop. The arenasexcept feat, should not do better.
Read too
Edgar Ramírez, the hard -hitting actor who slips into the skin of the powerful
Especially since the first feature film by director Camille Perton does not play in the same league – no stars or trips to Madrid or Riyadh to have a contract signed. But The arenasas Marketdepicts behind the scenes of football football through the agent-player relationship, far from the field. Here, Brahim (Iliès Kadri) is 18 years old and dreams in the head.
Gifted and promising footballer, he is represented by his cousin Mehdi (Sofian Khams), ready to make him sign his first professional contract in Lyon, deaf to the offer of the representative of a big club, generous in money (1 million) and in warning (“Loyalty is a dog, she can bite”).
-Show off the decor
The arrival of a foreign agent, Francis, will undermine the cohesion of cousins. He is played by Edgar Ramirez, a venezuelan actor very popular with French filmmakers (Emilia Pérez, by Jacques Audiard; Carlos et Cuban Network, by Olivier Assayas). Her charismatic mafia and queer manners bring something mysterious.
We think we are switching to a troubled homo -erotic relationship at the Ozon, putting on heeled shoes instead of crampons, but Camille Perton immediately decreases, leaving the desire in the locker room, unable to film Francis’ body in the foot when he bathes naked in the hotel pool – the counterchamp on the swollen cleaning women therefore appears ridiculous.
Read too
Our Mercato review: Jamel Debbouze, Awesome Business Football Burning Agent
Camille Perton’s first film dreams is a little bigger than he is. Its title is already grandiloquent – The arenasto signify that footballers are the gladiators of modern times, worn shot. His music is just as emphatic, symphonic score plated on images that do not ask for so much.
But he is not without interest in his way of showing the back of the decor, in particular the trading practiced by clubs which buy the first contracts of young players with extravagant signature bonuses. The outcome is hardly laughing, but lucid as to the fate of many aspirants to glory. A disenchantment far from a Champions League evening at the Parc des Princes.
